Spring Break Days 5,6,7: Kos, Greece

We arrived on the island of Kos at 4:15 am in a state of extreme lack of sleep. We braved the walk to our hostel along the coast, which wasn't all that bad as the sun was rising so the sky was a beautiful shade of reds, purples, and blues. We arrived at the hostel a little bit before 5, and when we got there, the door was locked. As we were attempting to figure out if it was the wrong entrance, a female voice from above shouts down what we want. We shouted back that we had a reservation, and a few minutes later a little old lady in a bathrobe comes to let us in. She also allowed us to go to our rooms right away, so we could get some sleep. As it turns out (as we would find out later), the hostel (which was actually more of a family-run hotel) was supposed to be closed for booking that particular weekend, but I think that we booked so far in advance that they didn't realize we had already made reservations.

So, quick notes about our hostel. When you walked in there was the lobby, then up the stairs was a living room (which belonged to the little old lady and her family) and then you walked up another flight in order to reach the rooms. So, every time we came or went, we had to walk through a living room of Greek people watching TV. We started calling the little old lady "grandma", and she gave us keys to let ourselves in at night and was always checking up to find out where we were going and when we'd be back. She gave us breakfast in the morning which consisted of a hard boiled egg, cheese, bread with butter and marmalade, orange juice, and tea/coffee. This was all served at her kitchen table, and freshly prepared by her. There was a middle-aged man there as well who frequently tried to make conversation with us, usually only to ask if we were cold (we were the only people on the island who found it appropriate to not be wearing scarves and winter jackets) and how we made our hotel reservation. Some other members of the family included another old woman who I think had alzheimer's because she kept trying to touch us and talk to us and grandma would shoo her away, and a little girl who was about one to two years old who was adorable and always staring at us during breakfast. I believe they all lived in the hotel.

So, Wednesday marked my 21st birthday (woo!!) so we started the day off sleeping in and then exploring Kos (which I think took all of 15 minutes). While discovering the area, we also discovered a few things about the culture. (1) It was not summer yet, so our sun dresses, flip flops, and sunglasses weren't appreciated by the locals. (2) It was windy. Really windy. I think that it might have been 15 degrees colder by the water. (3) This meant that it was impossible to sunbathe because you were so cold all the time. (4) Even if you are wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, people will still stop you on the street and ask you if you are cold. So weird.

Wednesday night we went out to dinner at a nice restaurant called H2O, where we got a lot of delicious and fancy foods, and then we went to a Western themed bar (Western as in American cowboys) for the duration of the night. Needless to say, we drank, we danced, we had a good time, and my birthday was a success. Everyone chipped in on gifts for me, which included a deck of cards with 500 pick-up lines on them, a book of drinking games, a pink sequined visor, a "Birthday Girl!" ribbon, a coaster, a British Cosmo magazine, ridiculous red sunglasses, and tickets to see the LION KING!! Hooray.

I am going to summarize the remainder of the things we did on Kos in one big paragraph rather than trying to do it by day. Kos basically was pretty boring, so we didn't do much while we were there. It consisted of a lot of sleeping, sitting, and relaxing, which was nice, but also got boring. Oh, and Dave F. and Ramon met up with us on the 18th early in the morning, so we had them to play with for our last two days. Yay!

Most of the shops and restaurants on Kos were closed for the season, but we did get some food at a couple of authentic Greek restaurants that was pretty good. New piece of knowledge I learned? Aubergine = eggplant. Good to know. We also explored some of the more 'historic' sites on Kos one of the days. We saw the exterior of the castle, saw Hippocrates' tree (not that exciting. I'm still not even sure who Hippocrates was), and just walked around the old parts of town. The rest of the group went to an old theatre the evening after my birthday, but as I was still recovering, I decided to take a nap instead. We spent one day just sitting in the sun in a cute little square drinking coffee and eating crepes (delicious). We finally left Kos on Friday night at 11:30 pm, and arrived in Athens about 9 hours later for our last two days of Spring Break.